Flashback Friday: When the action was all Downtown

It’s easy to think that the Strip is all there is to see in Las Vegas. The casino corridor that runs down Las Vegas Boulevard is an awe-inspiring spectacle of lights, architecture and people made famous by countless movie and television shows. But long before the Strip was a gleam in a casino mogul’s eye, Downtown Las Vegas was where the action was.

In today’s Flashback Friday photo we get a glimpse of when Downtown Las Vegas was known as the “World’s Largest Casino Center.” Downtown Las Vegas was where the concentration of casinos was in the 1930s and ’40s. The Strip wouldn’t get its first major resort until the 1946 opening of the Flamingo.

You will also find the Fremont Street Experience, which sees 19 million visitors a year. From now through Labor Day 2009, visitors can enjoy free concerts and spectacular laser shows at Fremont Street Experience’s “Summer of ’69: Vegas or Bust” festival. Nightly entertainment includes cover bands and tribute artists, theatrical performances with costumed entertainers, new Viva Vision shows paying tribute to the year 1969 and special guest appearances.

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